LiteratureThere are 127 items
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Opera [edited with a commentary by Christophorus Landinus]
Venice, Johannes de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, et Socii, 1483 (17 May)The complete works of Horace with the commentary of Cristoforo Landino, a copy owned and annotated by the Augsburg jurist, collector, and scholar Konrad Peutinger (1465–1547). In the early 1720s, when the first of Peutinger’s books and manuscripts entered the market, it was bought by the English bibliophile Edward Harley (1689–1741) for the Harleian Library. The book passed thereafter through the hands of the bookseller Thomas Osborne into the library of Bryan Fairfax (1766-1749), thence to Francis Child (c. 1735–1763), and by descent to Victor Albert George Child Villiers, 7th earl of Jersey (1845–1915), whose Osterley Park Library was sold in 1885. Since then, it has been in the William O’Brien (1832–1899) collection, its Peutinger provenance unrecognised. -
Quatuor libri amorum secundum quatuor latera Germanie feliciter incipiunt [and other writings]
Nuremberg, Printer for the Sodalitas Celtica, 1502 (5 April)First printing of the Amores, four books of vivid erotic poems, the major work of the imperial poet laureate Conrad Celtis. The title woodcut, depicting the author in his study, and four topographical woodcuts are believed to have been devised by Celtis himself, and executed by a single cutter, variously identified as Peter Visscher the elder, Peter Visscher the younger, Jacopo de’ Barbari, or Hans Süss von Kulmbach. Two other woodcuts, the “Allegory of Philosophy” and the dedication woodcut, are universally acknowledged as Dürer’s work. -
Laude de le belle donne perusine composte per el magnifico Camillo di Porti Vicentino
Perugia, Girolamo Cartolari, 1526 (28 January)This volume of verse by “uno amoroso giouane meser Camillo di Porti gentihomo Vicentino” (folio A1 verso) is representative of a type of popular literature published across Italy in the sixteenth century which seems to have been read almost out of existence. Often printed during the pre-Lenten carnival (February-March), the books celebrate in verse the women of particular towns; many are by authors otherwise unknown; all survive in very few copies. Our book is not cited by the principal authority on early Perugine printing, Giovanni Battista Vermiglioli; no copy has yet come to the attention of the editors of EDIT 16; and we trace no copy in other online and printed library catalogues accessible to us. -
Triomphi de Troilo Pomeran da Cittadela composti sopra li Terrocchi in Laude delle famose Gentil donne di Vinegia
Venice, Giovanni Antonio dei Nicolini da Sabbio, 1534Very rare volume of verse in praise of the noblewomen of Venice, loosely organised in four parts, commencing with thirteen stanzas of ottava rima on Venetian women in general, then (after a pictorial sub-title) twenty-two stanzas of ottava rima with headings associating specific women with the tarocchi trumps (Major Arcana), next twenty-one stanzas of ottava rima addressed to the author’s “Fenice”, and lastly two quatrains and two stanzas of terza rima. No other publication of the author is known. -
Elegie nvptiale presentee a tresnoble & tresillustre Princesse Madame Magdaleine premiere fille de France, le lendemain de ses nopces & mariage celebré auec le Roy d’Escoce
Paris, Simon de Colines, 1537Six copies are recorded of this plaquette, a poem (198 lines of decasyllabic couplets) written for the marriage of François I's eldest surviving daughter, Madeleine of Valois, to King James V of Scotland, solemnised in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris, on 1 January 1537. -
De le Lettere di M. Pietro Aretino. Libro primo
Venice, Francesco Marcolini, 1538 (January)The first printed collection of letters by a living person in the volgare, a major event in the history of the Italian language. It inspired a flood of lettere volgare, both the collected letters of individuals and anthologies, perhaps the most distinctive product of Italian literary life in the mid-Cinquecento. This first edition has been pursued by collectors since the eighteenth century and is widely recognised now as a rare book. Six other copies are known, of which two only (London and Munich) are complete. Our copy lacks eleven leaves, including the title and final leaf, both of which were adorned with a woodcut portrait of Aretino set within an architectural frame. -
La Cinthia favola boscareccia del Sig.or Carlo Noci
Naples, Giovanni Giacomo Carlino & Antonio Pace, 1594First edition of a five-act pastoral drama in verse, dedicated by its author to Giambattista Caracciolo, Marchese di Brienza, and also by the poet Giovanni Battista Vitale da Foggia to Vincenzo Filingieri, who is reported here to be the model for the character of Dameta. Inspired by Tasso's Aminta (1573) and by Guarini, Noci's plot hinges on the eponymous heroine returning to Arcadia after an absence of four years disguised as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. It was the one of the direct sources of The Queenes Arcadia (1606) by Samuel Daniel. -
The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar: together with the other works of England’s Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser: collected into one volume, and carefully corrected
London, Humphrey Lownes for Matthew Lownes, 1617One of very few books recorded in the library of the English court portraitist Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), inscribed by him with no less than six different monograms, and with a rapid landscape sketch on first flyleaf. The volume was subsumed for more than 200 years in the famous Isham Library at Lamport Hall, then in the collection of Charles Fairfax Murray, before passing in 1924 through the hands of Maggs Bros. into private collections, from which it has just emerged.
Bound with Tasso (Torquato). Godfrey of Boulogne: or The recouerie of Ierusalem. Done into English heroicall verse, by Edward Fairefax Gent. And now the second time imprinted, and dedicated to His Highnesse: together with the life of the said Godfrey. London: Printed by [Eliot’s Court Press, for] Iohn Bill, 1624. -
Le Fonti d’Ardenna festa d’arme, e di ballo; fatta in Firenze da dodici Signori Accademici Rugginosi il carneuale dell’anno 1623. Nel principato del Sig. Alessandro del Nero. Inuenzione del Sig. Andrea Saluadori. Descritta dal Rugginoso Percosso
Florence, Pietro Cecconcelli, 1623Description of ‘The fountains of the Ardennes’, an entertainment (tournament on horseback and dance) performed by the Accademici Rugginosi in the Palazzo della Gherardesca (Casa Rinaldi), on 3 February 1622. The librettist was Andrea Salvadori, from 1616 to 1628 the principal author of texts for theatrical entertainments at the Florence court. Music for the spectacle (now lost) was composed by Marco da Gagliano and scenery designed by Giulio Parigi. -
Aristodemo. Tragedia di Carlo de’ Dottori. All’altezza Ser.ma del Signor Principe Leopoldo di Toscana
Padua, Matteo Cadorino, 1657First edition of this five-act verse drama (with a chorus following Act IV), the “acknowledged masterpiece of Seicento tragedy” (Cambridge History of Italian Literature), first performed on 31 May 1655, by twelve Paduan gentlemen with Sertorio Orsato taking the role of Aristodemo. The play was afterwards revised for publication by the author, who incorporated advice tendered by several friends. This first edition is scarce: no copy is listed in the printed catalogues of Italian plays in the Folger Library, universities of Chicago, Illinois, Toronto, or Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome. -
Vita del Lascivo
Venice, Con Lic. De’ Supe. & Privileg. [no publisher named], c. 1660-1680An engraved ‘Life of the Rake’, an extremely rare set of prints retelling the cautionary tale of the Prodigal Son in seventeenth-century Venice. -
Bacco in Toscana. Ditirambo di Francesco Redi Accademico della Crusca con le Annotazioni
Florence, Piero Matini, 1685First edition of “Bacchus in Tuscany”, a dithyrambic poem of a thousand lines, begun in 1666 and finally published in 1685 with copious annotations. The poem recounts the passage of Bacchus through Tuscany, accompanied by Ariadne, satyrs, and bacchantes, during which a number of local wines are sampled and evaluated, as well as other drinks such as tea, chocolate and coffee. The work is “one of the most famous panegyrics on wine ever written” (Simon) and was reprinted in at least forty-one editions. -
Rimedi per la sonn da liezr alla banzòla. Dialoghi del Dottor Lotto Lotti nel suo idioma naturale Bolognese. Dedicati alle oneste donne e cittadine di Bologna per le Veglie Inuernali
Milan, Carlo Federico Gagliardi, 1703First edition of six satirical dialogues in Bolognese dialect celebrated for their social observation of the theatrical and musical life which the author knew as a librettist and for their influence on the tradition of the commedia improvvisa. The work is illustrated by a print of ten women ”alla banzolà”, engraved by Giacomo Maria Giovannini (unknown to both Bartsch and Le Blanc). -
Religio in Aula. Laus Augustiss. Conjugum Magni Leopoldi Austriaci, et Eleonoræ Magdalenæ Teresiæ Neoburgensis. Authore Francisco Hieronymo Saxio, olim Præposito Gener. Congreg. Oblatorum Sanctorum Ambrosii, et Caroli, nunc Mediolanensis Ecclesiæ Canonico Ordinario, Comite &c.
Milan, Giuseppe Pandolfo Malatesta, 1724A book in sheets (twelve sheets 450 × 345 mm, each imposed with eight pages; and three half-sheets 225 × 345 mm, each imposed with four pages), apparently complete, making-up as a quarto of 108 pages. The work is a eulogy in verse of Eleonora Maddalena Teresa, Pfalzgräfin von Neuburg (1655-1720), third wife of Leopold I (1640-1705), and mother of the reigning Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740), to whom it is dedicated by its author. Although properly licensed, correctly imposed and printed, the book may never have been issued: there is no trace of it in relevant bibliographies, and no copy has been located in a thorough search through a broad range of printed and electronic library catalogues. -
Orlando Furioso di M. Lodovico Ariosto [with Giovanni Andrea Barotti’s ‘Vita di Msr. Lodovico Ariosto. Riveduta, e accresciuta per la terza volta, e di Annotazioni non poco aumentata, che si sono portate in fine d’essa’; and ‘I Cinque Canti di M. Lodovico Ariosto. Tutti di nuovo revisti, e ricorretti da molti importantissimi errori’]. Tomo I [-IV]
Venice, Antonio Zatta, 1772A remarkable copy, printed on blue paper, of Zatta’s lavishly illustrated and ornamented edition of Ariosto, one of “les chefs-d’œuvre du livre illustré vénitien du XVIIIe siècle” (Maria Teresa Caracciolo). All copies of the edition feature a suite of sixty-six full-page engraved plates and in addition fifty-one engraved “Argomenti”, numerous initials, head- and tail-pieces. Only a small number of special copies – we are aware of about twenty besides our own, printed on vellum, carta azzura, or two sizes of carta d’Olanda – were further embellished by figurative engraved borders enclosing every page of text. These special copies are prized by collectors, who have paid dearly for them from almost the moment of publication to our own time. -
Gesammelte Schriften der Frau Herzoginn Julie von Giovane gebornen Reichsfreyinn von Mudersbach, Sternkreuz-Ordensdame, Ehrenmitgliedes der k. Akademie der schönen Wissenschaften, Künste und Alterthümer zu Stockholm [edited by Joseph Edlen von Retzer]
Vienna, Ignaz Alberti, 1793A collected edition of prose works of “die vergessene Dichterin”, Juliane Giovane (formerly Freiin von Mudersbach), elegantly printed in the leading printing-house of Vienna. -
La Gerusalemme Liberata di Torquato Tasso. Tomo I [-II]
Parma, Nel Regal Palazzo co’ tipi Bodoniani, 1794A magnificent production of the Bodoni press, offering a new text based on the editions printed in 1581 and 1584, and on some autograph notes by Tasso collected by the editor, Pier Antonio Serassi (1721-1791). The work is dedicated by the printer (in versi sciolti, composed on his behalf by Count Carlo Gastone della Torre di Rezzonico) to Carlos IV, King of Spain, who in 1793 had bestowed upon Bodoni an annual pension of 6000 Reali and the title “Typographer to His Majesty”. Four editions were printed, in foglio grande (in two volumes, with three cantos printed on each page), in foglio mezzano (in three volumes, with two cantos printed per page), in foglio piccolo (in two volumes), and in quarto (in two volumes). According to the earliest bibliographers of the Bodoni press, Francesco Fusi and Giuseppe De Lama, the edition in foglio grande appeared first, limited to just 130 copies. -
Cimelio tipografico-pittorico offerto agli Augustissimi Genitori del Re di Roma da Giambattista Bodoni
Parma, Co’ tipi Bodoniani, 1811One of the last and least-known of Bodoni’s type specimen books, presenting forty componimenti poetici by De Rossi, director of the Reale Accademia Portoghese di Belle Arti in Rome, each poem set in a different Bodoni type opposite a “love emblem” (Praz) engraved by Francesco Rosaspina (1762-1841). According to the printer’s friend and biographer, Giuseppe De Lama, writing in 1816, 100 copies were printed, of which “non più di sei esemplari si tirarono coi contorni” and four copies coloured by Antonio Pasini. In 1948, Giani corrected De Lama’s arithmetic, claiming an edition of “sei esemplari coi contorni, quattro miniati da Antonio Pasini e quaranta normali… Preziosi edizione di 50 esemplari irreperibili”. -
A Classical dictionary, containing a full account of all the proper names mentioned in ancient authors
London, Thomas & Joseph Allman, 1827(22.5 cm), xxiii, 726 pp. Contemporary leather, a collector’s binding. ¶ Presentation inscription on endpaper: Richard M.T. Bethell from E.M. Hutton | 5 Queen Anne Street | Feb.ry 16th 1928; exlibris “Westbury” (Richard Morland Tollemache Bethell, 4th Baron Westbury, 1914-1961). Good copy. -
Disraeli : a play
New York, John Lane Company, 1911(19 cm), 6 p. l., 11-114 p. front., ports. Publisher’s printed cloth, photograph laid to upper cover. - First edition. ¶ Pencil ownership inscription dated 1943 on endpaper; otherwise a fine, unmarked copy.
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